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djvink
Joined: 24 May 2007
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 Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 5:16 am Post subject: Good books on Korea |
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Hello,
Wanted to get a book on Korean history that is not too opinionated yet not 'dry' either. Anyone read any good books on Korean history, culture or the like?
Thanks |
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FMPJ
Joined: 03 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 6:21 am Post subject: |
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| The best 20th century stuff is by Bruce Cumings, imo. He's fairly opinionated, but Korea's Place in the Sun is required reading. |
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PBRstreetgang21
Joined: 19 Feb 2007
Location: Orlando, FL--- serving as man's paean to medocrity since 1971!
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| Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 1:19 pm Post subject: |
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Cumings is seconded.
He is absolutely exhaustive in his work without being dry. Very informative yet captivating.
Others to consider would be:
"Everlasting Flower: A History of Korea" by Keith Pratt
"A New History of Korea" (bit on the drier side of chardonnary but certainly aromatic) |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 1:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Cumings thirded. |
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djvink
Joined: 24 May 2007
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| Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 2:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Great, I am going to have to check him out. Thanks. |
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gypsyfish
Joined: 17 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 4:56 pm Post subject: |
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| The Koreans: Who They Are, What They Want, Where Their Future Lies by Michael Breen is a bit dated, but better than Cumings, which is also dated. Cumings is too much an apologist for the DPRK, which is neither D nor R. |
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PBRstreetgang21
Joined: 19 Feb 2007
Location: Orlando, FL--- serving as man's paean to medocrity since 1971!
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| Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 9:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Cumings is too much an apologist for the DPRK |
"I have no sympathy for the North, which is the author of most of its own troubles."-- Bruce Cumings |
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FMPJ
Joined: 03 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 11:57 pm Post subject: |
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That Breen book is awful. He purports to explain a culture (and its future!) in 250 pages. Dude's not a historian or an expert, he's barely a journalist (actually, now he's in business), and is guilty of some pretty laughable Orientalism, even when he means well.
He's a good writer, though, and seems to be an okay guy, but the only reason people read his book is the woeful dearth of good non-Cumings Korea books. |
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gypsyfish
Joined: 17 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:39 am Post subject: |
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I don't have time to dig out my copy to play dueling quotations, but here's an article from the Atlantic about Cumings.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200409/myers
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... In a book concluded in 1990 he argued that the Korean War started as "a local affair," and that the conventional notion of a Soviet-sponsored invasion of the South was just so much Cold War paranoia. In 1991 Russian authorities started declassifying the Soviet archives, which soon revealed that Kim Il Sung had sent dozens of telegrams begging Stalin for a green light to invade, and that the two met in Moscow repeatedly to plan the event. Initially hailed as "magisterial," The Origins of the Korean War soon gathered up its robes and retired to chambers. The book was such a valuable source of information on Korea in the 1940s, however, that many hoped the author would find a way to fix things and put it back into print.
Instead Cumings went on to write an account of postwar Korea that instances the North's "miracle rice," "autarkic" economy, and prescient energy policy (an "unqualified success") to refute what he calls the "basket-case" view of the country. With even worse timing than its predecessor, Korea's Place in the Sun (1997) went on sale just as the world was learning of a devastating famine wrought by Pyongyang's misrule. The author must have wondered if he was snakebit. But now we have a new book, in which Cumings likens North Korea to Thomas More's Utopia, and this time the wrongheadedness seems downright willful; it's as if he were so tired of being made to look silly by forces beyond his control that he decided to do the job himself. At one point in North Korea: Another Country (2004) we are even informed that the regime's gulags aren't as bad as they're made out to be, because Kim Jong Il is thoughtful enough to lock up whole families at a time. ... |
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FMPJ
Joined: 03 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:46 am Post subject: |
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| Man, that is a truly remarkable misreading of North Korea. |
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